


The Wolf Underneath

by sinisterkid92



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, TBB2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 17:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12775563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinisterkid92/pseuds/sinisterkid92
Summary: They sent her back in time to kill him, and make the world a little better for them. When she fails she returns to the present to find a world she does not recognize, one she does not want, one without her sister, they do not care. The only one who understands is the man she was meant to kill, the man who accidentally erased her sister. They never planned on her learning the truth, they never planned on her turning on them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Finally I get to share this little thing I have been working on for the past couple of months! It's been sitting on my computer waiting to be shared for ages now (it feels like). Check out the tumblr page timelessbigbang (. tumblr . com) to find more fanfics and the ART. This story has some art made by twilight_deviant and gwennieliz that you definitely need to check out (will be up during the day i.e 2011-11-20).
> 
> I appreciate kudos a lot, but I spent A LOT of time on this so please comment your opinion... it's the only kind of "payment" I get for spending my weekends the past 2 months on this.

The funny thing was that she didn’t even know how to shoot the damn thing. Heavy and odd in her hand it surprised her that she had even managed to squeeze the trigger. It didn’t surprise her that the bullet flew somewhere that wasn’t him, which ended up with her just alerting him of her presence instead of actually, you know, killing him. Boy, her mother would love hearing about this.

“Crap,” she whispered under her breath, watching without lowering her gun as he, the enemy, turned around to face her with an eyebrow quirked in amusement. It was almost as if he was saying ‘oh, me? I’m flattered’ which almost tickled a laughter out of her at the absurdity of the situation. What had they been thinking sending her into this situation? She was an historian that was a terrible driver and regularly fell up stairs, putting her in the position of assassinating a terrorist was just absurd. Really absurd. It sunk in even further just how absurd it was as he kept looking at her and straight into the barrel of the gun.

She always thought that fight or flight was real, but in this situation she did neither. Her feet were firmly glued to the ground as she found herself incapable of moving even a fraction of an inch. All she could muster, this time fully realizing the crap situation she was in, was another “crap.”

Garcia Flynn took one step towards her with a malicious grin growing on his face, his hand reaching underneath his jacket to pull his own gun out.

_ Present time - 14 hours earlier _

“I’m not going,” she said, wagging her finger at Noah who sat on the table in front of her trying to look casual. Trying. He was failing at it. She knew the moment Noah showed up at her door that something had happened. After all these years, she could read him like an open book, and she immediately knew that he was going to ask her something. Something big. She should’ve figured out it was this.

“Come on Lucy, you’re the historian,” he begged, reaching towards her to grab her hand as she jerked it away. It would be a lie to say that nothing had ever happened between them, it had once or twice because they’d known each other for years, were both married to their studies and then their careers, and they were both attractive… That, and they were supposed to be engaged. Even if they both knew it was a set-up from the start it didn’t matter. Their families didn’t leave much room for negotiation on the topic.

“And our engagement party is tomorrow night, so I’m not going. And mom’s not getting any better, I don’t want to leave her side.”  She didn’t bother to pick up the file that he had placed in front of her. “Not gonna happen, nu-huh.” She shook her head. “Amy needs me here.”

“Lucy, Amy’s not going to be here much longer if this Flynn guy gets his own way, and neither are you. He’s going to erase us.” His blue eyes were icy on her, pinning her down and reminding her of who they actually were. They were not ordinary people, they didn’t belong to an ordinary family. She sank back into her chair, gnawing on her bottom lip as she regarded the folder on the table.

“He’s already gone back, my dad gave me this when I left, and Homeland Security is coming knocking on your door in just a few minutes.” He pushed the folder closer to her. “You know they aren’t really asking.”

“No, they are not.” Giving up on resisting she picked it up from the table, and opened it, coming face to face with a dark haired man. Garcia Flynn, ex NSA, now a fugitive after murdering his wife and child.

“Flynn came sniffing after us, found out about our work with Connor Mason, and when some of our men visited him to bribe him into silence he turned hostile, started shooting at our men and his bullets hit his family instead of our men,” Noah explained, “he blames us for their deaths.”

“Sounds dangerous,” she said under her breath, unable to tear her eyes from his on the paper. They were empty, bored, like most eyes on photos like these. The harsh light and the often rushed impersonal situation of  _ look at the camera, click, next _ , stripped people of their humanity. They just became ink, a blank canvas so they can be identified in all situations. There was nothing the picture could tell her but that he existed, that in the moment this photo had been taken he had a rank and a meaning. National Security Agency, now something else. Now the enemy of all things now.

“He is, and you need to stop him if the soldier that they’re sending, Logan, can’t stop him.” His icy blue eyes had always stirred something inside of her, a sort of warning in the pit of her gut that told her that nothing was what it seemed. With years of getting to know him that warning that been subdued, rarely rearing its head. Now, as his eyes bore into hers, it flashed again. A large and unavoidable billboard sign that demanded caution.

“Stop him?” She’d never been a good actress, hiding the trembling in her voice was an afterthought, but she felt safe enough with him to not cover it up. If there was anyone she could show her vulnerability to it was him, was it not?

“They will have a gun for you to take with you--”

“What?” she interrupted him.

“Lucy,” he focused her on him, pulling her attention back to him by placing his hands on either side of her face, pulling her away from the thoughts that started reeling in her head. “You have to make sure he dies in 1937.” He nodded his head in a way that demanded her to do the same. There was no choice, he’d already said it.

That’s when the knock came.

\----

_ 1937 - Now _

As Garcia Flynn reached into his jacket for his gun Lucy thought of the million ways she could have said no to this assignment. Life always came with the risk of death. Death was the only thing that was certain about life, but she used to believe she had some say in when it would happen. She lived a safe and predictable life where she followed the rules and did good things. She rarely drank, and only ate food at places with a good reputation, and never ever jaywalked. The risks she took were small, until Garcia Flynn appeared.

This was a risk she never would have taken if she had a choice.

No matter how many ways she thought of to say “no thank you” to this assignment, they were all ridiculous since there was no way to actually say no.

The gun wasn’t a gun, just a worn-out journal that tattled of countless hours of writing and flipping through the pages. He held it in his hand, but did nothing with it, just stared down at her with a touch of betrayal hinting at the corner of his eye. Fascination, betrayal, anger, and a soul wrenching tiredness mingled together, and it almost made her take a step forward. Instead he did, closing the distance with three long steps.

“It’s time we talked.” He clutched the journal to his chest, the silver initials LP glittered against the golden licks of light from the flames that engulfed the wreckage beside them. “You need to understand the truth about them.”

She jerked back, scowling at him and his attempt of manipulation. “I understand that you're a psychopath trying to burn everything to the ground.” Standing close enough to the flames that were of his causing made the statement both literal and figurative. “Burn my  _ family _ to the ground.” The threat he posed to them was reason enough to stop him, she didn’t need any more justification.

“That depends on your point of view Lucy, who the bad guy really is.” A smile pulled on his lips when she reacted to her name, the kind of smile that was pleased that she noticed. It had been deliberate, using her name, to point out who was holding the deck of cards in this game.

“How do you know my name?” It was a whispered question, almost a pant of shock. There was no reason for him to know who she was, but he’d had a lot of time since the death of his family to research them. Ice crawled through her veins. If he knew her name then he’d also known who she was, the very thing that was never supposed to happen. There were safeguards, contingencies on the contingencies, but here he was with her name on his lips.

“I know everything about you Lucy.” He opened the journal to a page filled with handwritten text that looked -- no, it couldn’t be. Her hand reached out, fingers trembling to reach the pages before they were snatched away from her. She needed to make sure it was real. She recognized the sharp curve of the c’s and the carless and uneven slope of the s, the almost triple arch of the m’s that she had tried to work away but they always came back whenever she got lost in writing. Even the capital letters, the way she wrote key names in uppercase rather than lowercase…

“That is my handwriting,” she reached for the journal again but he snatched it away, wrapping the small leather band around it like it was the tiny and useless lock she used to have on her diaries as a child. When he placed it back in his coat pocket she looked up at him again, at the disheveled man that hadn’t had a haircut in months, with stubble from a hasty and sloppy shave left on his cheeks. “But I didn’t write that.”

“Not yet, but you will.” Despite the chaos around them, the cries for help and shock, it was as if a lid closed over her ears and all that she could see was him. The gun in her hand doubled in weight, reminding her that this wasn’t her role in this. She played a part, she’d done what was asked of her until now. She let Flynn save the people on the first Hindenburg, she was too late in stopping Flynn from bombing this second voyage. The people escaped but the Hindenburg was on fire. Failure. For a brief second she considered lifting the gun again, pressing it against his chest and pulling the trigger. Like a good daughter. She’d always been able to recognize earnest people. Sometimes it was clouded, sometimes she wasn’t paying attention or didn’t want to see it. With Flynn she couldn’t look away.

“Time travel,” she breathed.

“I know what you’re really meant to do Lucy, and it isn’t to be a pawn in their game,” he took a step towards her. “You’re meant for something greater than to follow in your mother’s footsteps. Rittenhouse isn’t your family, it’s not your legacy, they’re using you Lucy.”

With words lost in her throat at the implications of what he was saying she couldn’t get herself to move, couldn’t force the words out of her. Questions gave birth to more questions, and she couldn’t decide which one she needed to ask first. Instead, no questions were given room to be answered as he grabbed a hold of her and spun her around, pressing her back to him with the barrel of a gun pointed at her temple.

Wyatt. Some feet in front of her he stood with the steady grip of his gun that she never had, pointing it at the two of them. At this distance she couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t see if he was scared or not. Didn’t know what to make of the chaos that was spiraling out of her control. It felt like cold water against her fingertips, rising.

“I know for a fact that you’re not gonna shoot.” Flynn’s voice was calm, despite it all it didn’t even appear to faze him to have a gun pointed at his head. “I think you should hide yours,” he whispered in her ear, reminding her that she had a gun no one had authorized her to bring. Quickly, hidden in the movement of Flynn pulling at her roughly, she hid it inside her coat pocket. “We’ll meet again Lucy.”

Then, Wyatt pulled the trigger and there were no arms holding her tight anymore. No warm breath in her ear. Only the whooshing of her own heartbeat. Adrenaline pumped through her veins like a panic that sat across her chest. Then the realization like a slap of reality; Kate Drummond, leather jacket blonde, was lying bleeding on the ground.

Even knowing that she should have died the day before, crushed to death by the crash of the Hindenburg, seeing her there gasping for breath grew the crushing weight on her chest. Time moved slower than it ever had before as she crouched down next to her and Wyatt. He’d intended to save her the day before, ran out into the field where she was about to die, and grabbed her. To any onlookers, he seemed crazy. They didn’t know what time travelers knew.

Instinct pulled her to Kate. She didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to save anyone from a bullet wound. All she could think of was to rest her head on her lap, responding something to Wyatt as he disappeared away in the direction a bleeding and wounded Flynn had fled towards. She didn’t register her own words, or even his, it was as if everything was happening somewhere else. Rittenhouse, he’d said, were the bad guys. She was supposed to help him, not kill him. Kate Drummond was bleeding to death in her lap.

It seemed like barely a moment had passed when Wyatt was back, saying something about how he couldn’t find Flynn, something about that she should move because he wanted to help her. Help Kate.

There was a sadness far deeper than that of Kate Drummond’s shuddering breaths as bright red blood seeped through Wyatt’s fingers. She wanted to reach out to the two of them, correct herself and the wrong she had already done. Yesterday was the day Kate was supposed to die, but it didn’t have to be. The changes Flynn made were supposed to save her too. It was easy to feel the injustices of time like a hand circling tighter around her throat. She could change things, she could make it for the better. It was already what they wanted her to do, it was already what she was supposed to do.

Could she not have saved one more life? Somehow it could have been done.

It went against everything she believed. The first time she’d heard about Mason’s project her initial reaction had been to cuss out everyone in the room. History was unpredictable, there was no way to know the consequences of anyone’s actions could be in the long run. Saving someone seemingly insignificant could lead to deaths of millions.  

What was she supposed to do? Her life hadn’t been her own for a long time. Not since the accident, not since… her mind wouldn’t allow her to remember.

“Kate…” Whatever Wyatt was about to say died on his lips as Kate chest heaved with the effort to push air back into her lungs.  “Kate,” he repeated her name like a mantra, like a spell to cure her. This death was far more painful than the one destiny had in store for her. The death that had been intended for her was quick, this was anything but. Kate’s eyes were unfocused, darting across Wyatt’s face and the smoke filled black sky above them. The air tasted of ash as she fell to her knees next to Wyatt.

This would be her life now, wouldn’t it? Following one disaster after another to watch it unfold. Scramble to try to minimize Flynn’s wreckage, and then cause her own. Like Kate Drummond bleeding to death in Wyatt Logan’s lap.

Death was quiet. She remembered her own dad’s passing, her mother’s screaming waking her up one morning 23 years ago. In the silence after, before she could hear the muffled crying from down the hall, Lucy knew what had happened. Death was always, somehow, surrounded by silence.

\---

_ Present time _

The hum of electricity was something she hadn’t noticed in a while. It was usually after a power outage, or returning back into the city after a camping trip, that the ambient noise was noticeable. In the launch room the dozens of computers made the air almost vibrate with such intensity that it weighed down on her already heavy head.

It wasn’t until she stood by a computer listening to Mason reading out loud from a wikipedia page on what had happened on May 7th 1937 that she felt the earth tilt just a little on its axis. Things had changed. They were supposed to change, that was her job.

To experience the change, to know a reality that was just slightly different from the one she’d grown up with, wasn’t exciting. It wasn’t scary either. Maybe it was the loss of Kate Drummond, that her blood has just dried on the wine-red skirt she wore, but it just felt sad.

They were each given a cot to sleep in for a few hours before being debriefed. Despite that the cot was barely wider than her she fell asleep instantly, and as far as she knew she didn’t dream anything at all.

Even the threat of being charged with treason didn’t keep her from wanting to tell Amy. She’d last seen her sister sitting by their mother’s bedside, but she was swept away by Noah before they could talk. Lucy had heard her voice through the door as Homeland Security had whisked her away in a hurry. She’d been pleading to know why they were taking Lucy, and where. Noah hadn’t let her out the door, becoming an immovable object, a wall between the two of them.

She didn’t understand why. Or, maybe she did. Amy could have convinced her not to go, to refuse this assignment no matter what. In the end, Rittenhouse wasn’t powerful enough to reign over their relationship. It would be like Amy to fight tooth and nail for the truth, and then refuse to let Lucy go. Amy had only been thirteen when Lucy found out about Rittenhouse, too young and too immature to understand the totality and importance of the organization. Even at 20 Lucy battled with the concept of it, but ultimately Rittenhouse was her family. There was no going around that.

Amy wouldn’t accept something on the basis that it’s family. It had more often scared than impressed Lucy how independent her sister could be, discarding herself of ties which went against her moral compass. To her the world wasn’t the cogwheel and hands of a clock, it was an ever shifting form that was malleable and complex, and couldn’t be understood by assigning people a purpose. When Amy was heading off to college, sending herself to New York instead of staying on the west coast like their mother, Lucy, and the entire Rittenhouse had wanted, Lucy knew that Amy’s life was always going to be different. Distant. When their mother refused to pay for tuition Amy got a scholarship, too brilliant and intelligent to be thwarted by anything Rittenhouse could throw her way.

In the end, Amy did return. Not because of Rittenhouse power plays or manipulation, but because the two of them were sisters and they were missing in each other’s lives. Ever since their mother’s illness, the diagnosis that struck down like lightning from clear blue sky, they’d grown closer each day. Even though they were 7 years apart, they had the big moments shared between them -- their father’s death, her accident, and now their mother’s illness -- Lucy knew their relationship was as strong as if they’d grown up the same age. When Lucy was figuring out how to be a teenager, Amy was figuring out how to be a big kid in a big school, and when Lucy was rebelling against their mother at 20 so was a newly teenage Amy. They were at different ages yet somehow managed to be at the same place, anyway.

Now Amy was 26 and doing only whatever she wanted to do, and for the first time Lucy no longer felt like she understood her sister anymore. Lucy was chasing tenure and stability while Amy was doing anything but, living a dream Lucy once had but it had been cut off by an oil patch and an icy lake.

The house felt different as she entered it, not noticeably so. It was as if a picture frame had been shifted a few inches and threw off the entire feel of their home. Not thinking anything of it, she simply moved onward into the house, calling out her sister’s name.

“Amy, I’m home?” the lack of answer was a bit odd, but she could have fallen asleep. “Amy?” She glanced up the staircase, but saw no movement up there. For a moment her imagination ran away with her, images of her mother lying dead in the morgue while her sister had to fill out papers on her own crashed through her head for a split second before she could reign herself back in.

The pictures inside of her head quieted as she rounded the corner. In front of her was her mother with her hair blonde and long, no longer a bald head wrapped in scarves to keep her warm. Cheeks flush and forehead shiny from the steam coming from the stove as she cooked. She looked just as she had two years ago, cooking dinner as if all was as it should be.

Thinking out loud, unable to censor herself in the rush of blood that pounded in her ears and in her body. Joy, fear, excitement, and utter confusion had her scrambling to make sense of it all. “How… how did the Hindenburg do this?”

“Hindenburg did what now?” her mother’s eyes twinkled mischievously, as they did even when she was too weak to sit up in bed but she still managed to tease her daughters without mercy. “You have to tell me all about it over dinner, I’m making your favorite.” She scraped the chopped onions off the cutting board and into a pan. “Did you get me a snickers?”

Lucy nodded, her mind somewhere else entirely as she placed the snickers on the counter. It didn’t make sense how saving people on the Hindenburg meant that her mother didn’t have terminal cancer. At least not yet.

“Was it you and Mr Carlin that posed as the Anarchist Black Cross? Because that was always something I thought was odd about the whole thing, I know we’ve discussed this, at least I discussed this with you, but... “ she paused, and smiled at her daughter. “They reported to me that they’ve listened to the tapes and checked off on all the information on the drive you had with you, and you did a great job sweetie.”

“That was quick,” Lucy murmured, stepping closer to her mom to make sure that this was real, and pulling her into a hug that crushed her mother against herself just to make sure. She was warm, she could feel her breath against her head as her mother turned her head towards her, and she could feel her mother’s lips as they kissed her. “This is real,” Lucy breathed. “Where’s Amy?” She couldn’t wait to tell Amy about this amazing adventure she had been on, excluding just a few details. Time travel was the sort of thing Amy would have loved to be able to experience. She was always the sci-fi nerd in their family who would force Lucy to sit through hours of Star Trek marathons, and convinced Lucy to secretly record all the X-Files episodes so that Amy could watch them.

“Amy who?” Her mother almost chuckled. “Who’s Amy?”

There were three times in her life when lightning had struck from blue sky. They all involved death, injury, and illness. They were events that altered the course of their lives forever, they were events that couldn’t have been foreseen by anyone. They happened, and then they had to deal with it. This wasn’t just lighting. It was a complete shattering that started from the inside of her chest and became a vibrating explosion like high tension glass that had been struck. Lucy had only had a panic attack a few times in her life, and they all involved tight spaces after the accident. The walls seemed to be closing in on her, growing taller and more ominous than before, her mother’s face distorted in her vision as she tried to focus on her.

“No,” Lucy shook her head. “No.” This was her fault, this was all her fault. She let Flynn save the Hindenburg, and now she didn’t have a sister. No, this couldn’t be. This wasn’t even death. There wouldn’t be a funeral. There would be no one who knew she even existed. Someone like Amy couldn’t be gone, not like that. Not someone as amazing, scary, and awe inspiring as Amy. No.

She left her mother in the kitchen, turning back towards the hallway. No. “Amy?” she shouted her name up the stairs. There was no way that she could be gone. Yet she was. “Mom,” she called out again, seeing her mother standing in the doorway into the hallway she knew exactly what she had to do. “We have to fix this, we have to get her back.”

“Get who back Lucy?” They didn’t tell her, did they tell her? Lucy’s mind was racing with thoughts. How could a mother not know about her own daughter?

“Amy, my sister. Your daughter.” She ran a hand through her hair, holding it back as she paced up and down the hallway. “You have, had… have a daughter whose name is Amy, and we have this incredible relationship that… I have to get back my sister, we have to fix this.”

“I’ll call, and I’ll talk to them about this, okay?” Her mother seemed unsure, but acquiesced anyway. Against her collarbone, she could feel the cool silver of the necklace she always wore. For the first time in a long time she could actually feel the locket against her sternum. she’d worn it so much that she rarely noticed its presence. It was the only thing she had left of her sister, a present Amy had given her for her 30th birthday when Amy had returned from New York permanently.

She opened it, to make sure it was real, to make sure it had actually happened. She had a sister. It was real. The memory wasn’t a result of time travel, it wasn’t fake. It was real. This was the reality that was wrong. That wasn’t the way it should be. No one messes with time without facing the consequences, she thought. What was the price the others had to pay? Did she even want to know?

As she was about to call out to her mother, show her the locket and the wide smiling grin of her sister’s that a decade ago had been all metal and awkwardness, but was now just happiness. Just joy. Completely and utterly Amy. But how could a picture convince her mother of the love she had? Would a picture be enough to stir the latent emotions that had been removed by time, or was it too late? Was it just a picture with no power at all? She suspected so. The phone rang.

Rittenhouse. She remembered that. Remembered how he’d known her when he wasn’t supposed to. She was supposed to be anonymous, and he was supposed to be dead now. Instead he’d traveled back in time again, and she had to go chasing after him. It wasn’t a request, or a suggestion. She couldn’t turn it down. She would have to travel back in time again.

“Mom?” she called out after ending the call, wanting to know what to do. Wanting to know that her sister was just temporarily missing. Assurance. She wanted assurance.

Even from a distance she could see her mom’s tight face as she listened to the person on the other end. It wasn’t rare that her mother got angry, she and her sister had been raised on tough love and guidance, which meant that Lucy knew exactly what that scowl meant. It wasn’t quite fury as much as it was indignation and hurt.

“You weren’t going to tell me, were you?” her mother asked as she hung up the phone. Ice cold and calm fury that made Lucy take a step back. Before she was able to utter more than a single syllable in question, her mother continued. “That if we bring back this girl, Amy, then I die.” A single eyebrow quirked in challenge.

“She’s your  _ daughter _ ,” Lucy started. She wasn’t a mother, but surely anything would be worth sacrificing for your own child? It may have been cold, but Lucy had come to terms with her mother’s passing months ago. They had made peace with it, as much as they could. Amy had just begun her life, was making something out of herself. She was the one who truly knew how to live her life, and do it well. Make life worth it.

“So you say, but I don’t know this girl, and Rittenhouse won’t allow you to kill me to save a girl we don’t even trust to know our family legacy, come on Lucy, this is insanity.” How did she know that much? She never even considered the information the drive contained. It was a 64gig drive, and there was no way that could fit detailed information about the time she’d come from, right? She didn’t know much about technology, but it seemed wrong even to her ears.

“She’s family, mom, she’s my sister.” She was moments away from getting down on her knees to beg for her sister’s life when her phone vibrated again, informing her that a car was waiting outside to pick her up. She made a mental note to remind them that she could drive herself there from now on, at least if they gave her an access badge.

“No, Lucy.” Her mother shook her head, a grim look on her face. “I’m not letting you kill me for someone I don’t even know, and Rittenhouse isn’t going to let you either. Whoever Amy is, she is gone now, and there is nothing that we can do about it.”

There was, Lucy thought as she slowly nodded her head, wiping at the tears that had spilled on her cheeks. There was something she could do.


	2. Chapter 2

When Wyatt complained about the second trip, asking Rufus if it ever got better Lucy realized just how distracted she had been since she’d left her mother’s house. Sure, her stomach jostles the same way it did when they traveled to 32, but she hadn’t really paid attention to it. Anger, it turned out, was very distracting.

She hadn’t told them about her sister, somehow it felt too personal to share with them, especially considering what she was planning to do. The debate was still raging in her head, because if they knew then they’d understand her motivations better, and they wouldn’t consider her the enemy. Since Wyatt had only been some inches away from blowing her brains out a few hours earlier this seemed like a good idea.

Yet, and this was a big yet: if she told them about her sister, and that this was her only ticket to getting her back, then she would have to explain to them about Rittenhouse. That wasn’t exactly a conversation she wanted to have, or a target she wanted to paint on their backs. Knowing about Rittenhouse came with obligations, and they weren’t always the kind which were unambiguously right. Often the obligations were uncomfortable, and went against all personal beliefs.

This was the first time she thought like Amy, and it was to fight for her. This meant she couldn’t say or do anything to risk Amy’s life. It was entirely possible that both Rufus and Wyatt were Rittenhouse agents, and telling them would mean her own certain death. There were few things that she’d known Rittenhouse to do that were bad, but to claim it was anything but a cult was to bury your head in the sand. She’d done that for too many years, and she was done hiding.

She was done ignoring her instincts.

What she knew now was that she couldn’t let Flynn change history anymore, and she couldn’t help Rittenhouse anymore either. She had to get her sister back. The more he changed, the more he put a sledgehammer to history, the less likely it would be that her sister would return to her. Until she found Flynn she would have to work together with Wyatt and Rufus, because right now they all wanted the same thing: for history to stay intact.

It was true. Lincoln was her hero, and she had studied his speeches. Walking the roads and the spaces which she had read about, and even written about herself, was a dream come true. This was something that never should happen, knowing what she knew of time travel now, yet she couldn’t help but feel like a child on Christmas morning as she spoke to Robert Todd Lincoln. It was something that should happen in a movie, not to her. Not to any actual real person.

What proved to be hard was speaking to Flynn, who was obviously hostile towards them. When they accidentally stumbled across Flynn and his men it was no surprise that they started shooting at them. Not fun. Not exciting. Expected, nevertheless. She’d almost given up hope when he found her at the train station. After looking for him, and trying to find him, it annoyed the crap out of her that he’d found her so easily. First she completely failed at killing him, which she was happy about even then, and was now over the moon about considering the opportunity it gave her -- and now he’d managed to find her with ease. Not cool.

“We really have to stop meeting like this, Lucy.” He knew how easy it had been for him, flaunted it in her face. Anger boiled up and out of her, and she couldn’t contain it.

“You son of a bitch,” she fumed. “My sister is gone because of something you did to the Hindenburg.” His face seemed genuinely surprised at the revelation, yet there was no hint of guilt or remorse for tearing her sister from this life. Then again, what could she expect from a man who killed people the way he did?

“This is war, I lost my whole family.” She shook her head, taking a step up towards him because his lies wouldn’t work with her.

“You forget I know the truth,” she whispered. “I know that you tried to murder people who came to your house to bribe you into silence, and then  _ your  _ bullets killed your wife and child.” As she stared him straight the eyes she saw the reaction to her words as she spoke them, a split second of confusion, and then exploding anger that abated into something else. It was barely even a moment, and he grabbed the wrist of her hand as she jabbed the air at him. His grip was strong, tight enough to almost hurt.

“You know that’s a lie Lucy” He said through gritted teeth. “Rittenhouse killed my wife and child.” She pulled at her arm to get loose of his grip, and he released her without resistance.

“No, they don’t do that.” For a moment she almost said we, almost made herself a part of them again. After the events of the last couple of hours she could never see herself as a part of them anymore. Even if she wanted to go back that would soon not be an option. She wasn’t Rittenhouse, not anymore. She was on her own.

“They don’t kill people?” He almost smiled at that, a sardonic half smile that said she didn’t know anything at all. “They killed my wife and child in their beds, still asleep… they were going to kill me too, but I managed to escape.” Why did she believe him now? She wouldn’t put it past a man like him to lie and manipulate people to get what he wanted. But, the raw grief and anger couldn’t be faked, she felt it too. Sour and flaming just barely under control.

“They wanted me to kill you…” she trailed off, of course they kill people. They asked her to without thinking twice. As soon as they heard about Flynn they wanted him dead.

“I’m lucky you’re a terrible shot.” It wasn’t a joke, but she chuckled anyway. The tension was too much, the anger was festering in her belly. She couldn’t help herself. “You need to open your eyes Lucy, see the truth. See what Rittenhouse really are.”

“They won’t help me get my sister back, won’t let me,” she said. “My sister is gone, and not even my mother cares about it, all they care about is Rittenhouse and what I am going to do for them.” She pressed a thumb against the skin between her eyebrows, willing the tears away. “I didn’t know.” She didn’t know if she believed him yet, believed that the people she called family could be responsible for such a terrible act. She just knew that he was innocent. What she knew was that she had to trust him, because he was all she had. “And I need your help to get her back.”

“Just yesterday you tried to shoot me, and today you’re asking for my help?” His confusion was understandable, she had to give him that. She just didn’t have time for confusion because she needed to get him on her side.

“I’m offering you my help in return for you helping me to get my sister back,” she whispered, somehow paranoid of listening ears that could report her disloyalty back to them and getting her in trouble. Or Rufus walking in on them finding out what she was doing. She was about to abandon them here in 1865 without telling them that she was going, and that was shitty in all senses of the world, but she had no choice. This was her sister.

“What do you have to offer me?” He quirked his eyebrows, looking about as much as a douchebag as she felt herself. They would make a good team.

“I’m an historian, and I know things about Rittenhouse history, about Rittenhouse today that can help you take them down,” she said it quickly, as if she took any more time to say the words she would chicken out, go back to Wyatt and Rufus, and continue on with the mission and do the bidding of Rittenhouse.

“Why should I trust you?” he almost spat the words out, “you’re Rittenhouse yourself.”

“I didn’t know! Okay?” she shouted, rage again bubbling up inside her because why didn’t she know these things about Rittenhouse? About her legacy and family? It was only when Flynn looked over at a couple who’d stopped outside of the train station house that she realized just how loud she was. She smiled tightly at the couple in apology, bowing her head as Flynn did the same. The two of them walked further into the train station house and away from the crowd of people who’d gathered outside the broken train.

“I just want my sister back, like you want your family back.” She kept an eye on the people that passed, this time making sure her tone was light and low. They didn’t want to attract more attention to themselves. “Rittenhouse are essentially killing my sister by forbidding me to do anything that could bring her back.”

“Okay, say I take this deal, what do you suggest we do with Lincoln and his friends?” He did the same as she by keeping an eye on the crowd around them, but she suspected it was more subconscious for him than it was for her. Ex NSA. She remembered that he used to be an NSA asset from the briefing two days ago.

“Nothing,” she said. “Right now we do nothing, we don’t make any changes to history because as far as I know this is quite literally just a sledgehammer and not a strategic hit, this could just as easily  _ help  _ Rittenhouse as it could end them.” She shook her head. “Nothing about Lincoln or his presidency, or the people close to it are anywhere close to Rittenhouse. I know what that looks like, and there’s nothing to suggest they are connected.” She grimaced as she looked at the broken down train outside. “You need to fix this, and I’ll help you.”

“I know how to break a train, I don’t know how to fix one,” Flynn said, almost sounding amused which jarred her out of her thoughts. A psychopath with humor sounded like a terrible combination.

“That’s not what I’m saying, you know that’s not what I’m saying.” If she was being honest with herself he almost reminded her of her sister. The most annoying parts of her sister, that was. “General Grant cannot attend the play tonight, and neither can Robert Todd Lincoln. You need to stop that from happening.” Flynn thought for just a moment, regarding her with skepticism.

“I have an idea.” For some reason she knew that whatever it was, she wasn’t going to like it.

\--

She watched the clouds roll in over the mountains. They were heavy, looking like mighty elephants the way they moved across the sky paying no mind to whatever was in their path. The silence out here was nearly deafening. She reached for the locket that still hung around her neck, holding it tight in her hand.

“Amy…” she whispered into the landscape in front of her. It was hard to know how to relate to this new reality which she had been dealt. She’d always believed that people who died went to heaven, she’d never considered hell as a concept too much, but Amy wasn’t dead. Ever since her father died when she was a child she would talk to him whenever she missed him and she would feel him with her in some strange way. Amy felt lost.

If Amy didn’t exist in this timeline what did that mean for her? Was there no heaven and no hell?

“Amy,” she tried again, holding the locket tighter as she closed her eyes trying to concentrate. There was nothing. The warmth she would feel when thinking of her dad wasn’t there. It was just bottomless emptiness.

“The mothership is almost fully charged,” Flynn said from the doorway, startling her out of her thoughts. “Where are we going next?”

She was still mad at him for what he did in April 1865. There were minor changes to history that an untrained eye wouldn’t see but she could. She’d written a book about it, of course she knew all the details. There was no way of telling what repercussions this had to their timeline, who lived and who died that shouldn’t have. Where they changing things for the better or for worse, or was everything still the same? One person lived in 1937 causing her sister to never have been born, what other things have they done? What more will they end up doing? Was it worth it?

“You kidnapped General Grant and Lincoln’s son,” she bit out slightly harsher than she’d intended to. “What if you’d caused a concussion, or a fatal injury when you  _ knocked them out _ .” She was not just mad, she was furious with him for his irresponsible recklessness.

“I did what I had to do.” He said it with a casual shrug, like it didn’t matter to him that the changes he was making to history were impacting more people and things than him.

“Yeah? How many more people out there have lost their sister but they don’t even know it?” She leaned back against the house wall. It was an abandoned barn in the middle of nowhere. The paint had faded off revealing the brown decaying wood underneath.

“Do you want your sister back?” There was no judgment in his voice and there was no empathy either. She whipped her head to look at him.

She was angry. She could say it a thousand times over and it still would not describe what she was feeling. This was not at all what she signed up for. Then again, it was either him or Rittenhouse. She was truly between a rock and a hard place, and the only reason she could chose was because she knew the rock was bad. The hard place had potential. It was undefined. A mattress could be hard and it wouldn’t crush her like a rock. It could also be something far worse than Rittenhouse.

The only thing she had to go on was hope.

“Yes,” she nodded her head. “But ending Rittenhouse won’t exactly bring her back, you know.” She looked away from him again, focusing back on the clouds that were passing over them. “I’m not stupid Flynn, if we end Rittenhouse then my mother won’t be born… Amy’s gone.”

She stood up and looked over to him. Amy was gone, there was nothing she could do about it. She had been sitting out here for hours now, finding herself trying to reverse reality, trying to find a crack in time within herself where she could crawl back and change what happened, get back the life she once had. It was impossible for her to grasp how gone her sister truly was, that there was no going back. This was it. This was what she had to deal with now.

“June 1972,” she said. “The missing Nixon tape should have information about Rittenhouse members.” This was it. This was how she was losing her sister. For a moment she considered going back to her mother, to Rittenhouse and beg them to let her save her sister and her mother at the same time. Yet she knew, never having asked Rittenhouse for anything, that she wouldn’t get her way. All Rittenhouse had done since she found out about them was to demand things of her. Demand her to keep studying history and to get married to Noah. It was safe.  Safe to never have to make any big choices herself. After the accident all she wanted was safe. Yet, without her sister none of it was worth it anymore.

\--

The mothership was much larger than the lifeboat. It should have been evident by their names, but the lifeboat wasn’t just a small boat in comparison, it was more of a raft than anything. Inside the ship were 8 seats with a comfortable spacing between them. It was nothing like knocking knees together with Wyatt Logan trying to remain somewhat comfortable.  

She wondered for a brief moment if Rufus and Wyatt had made the time jump yet, but didn’t dare to ask Anthony where he sat a few feet away from her manning the dashboard still. They’d left her behind for a few hours while they got clothes for her, since none of them had planned on a woman joining their ranks there were no clothes for her in 2016 that suited the 1970s. There were no clothes, period. Since she wasn’t about to spend any more time than necessary in a corset the only thing she was left with was Flynn’s clothes.

The jeans were barely kept up by the belt, and she had to roll them twice in the waist to get them to stay up even with the belt on. Luckily her legs were long, but she still had to roll hems up. Adding the massive t-shirt and she looked like a child playing dress up, and not in a cute way.

The only request she had sent with Flynn about clothes were that she wanted to wear pants. Given that most eras they would be traveling to would mean skirts for her she wanted to wear pants any chance she got. 1972 was definitely a good time to wear pants.

 

She was just about to ask Anthony about Rufus and Wyatt when someone started punching in the code on the keypad on the outside. The door opened lazily and slow to reveal Flynn standing outside in the tux he’d traveled to the decade in. He tossed two bags in her direction, one with clothes and one with shoes.

“How’d it go?” she asked, pulling out a pair of wide-leg pants that she think she’d seen Abba wear once. Not the most flattering.

“I got you a dress too, in case you changed your mind.” He avoided the topic, but she couldn’t help the smile that crept onto her face at the thoughtful gesture. The dress was patterned and long yet looked like something she could get away with wearing in 2016. The big dresses of the 18th and 19th century was one thing, but she knew she’d feel ridiculous wearing the pants. The dres was a green boat-neck dress with golden details with a waistline that was typical for the era. She could deal with it.

“Have Wyatt and Rufus arrived yet?” Anthony nodded with a grim look on his face.

“About twenty minutes ago, they should be making their way to the White House now.” He was pressing a few buttons which she had no clue what they did.

“Okay,” Flynn looked over at her. “We’re going to give you some privacy… to change.”

Her third go at time traveling didn’t take the awe out of it at all. It went against everything she’d ever known as true; that time was linear and fixed. What had happened was gone and all that was left was to deal with the consequences. It was far easier to look at history as something immutable and merely a case of perspectives and what was documented, rather than something that could be changed. The horrors of the past weren’t a thing that could be twisted and analyzed in the comfort of distance, it raised the moral and philosophical question of what was right to do. Was the current present was worth protecting even if it was built on the suffering of people in the past, or if a person has the moral obligation to make it better for everyone.

Who was to say anything would improve? Would killing Hitler as a baby have made world war two any different, would another person have filled the gap and done something slightly less horrific or possibly even worse? It was impossible to tell. Did you have to try?

She wasn’t sure if Flynn had considered the moral implications of what he was doing, especially not so after he informed her that he’d shot tw security guards to get to the missing Nixon tape.

“There was no other way for you to get that tape?” They were standing outside the door to the hotel room she’d been in just the day before (but over a hundred years ago for non-time travelers). Inside were Rufus, Wyatt, and the new historian they had somehow managed to recruit in the 24 hours since she left them in 1865.

”They weren’t exactly just going to hand it over to me Lucy.” He was impatient with her, his jaw tense and voice teetering on being more than just annoyed. “You really need to stop questioning everything that I do.”

“I would if you stopped killing people all the damn time,” she growled and crossed her arms across her chest. “What are the purpose of kidnapping them?” She jerked her head at the door.

“We need their help.” She raised her eyebrows and looked at him doubtfully. “We’ll give them an incentive,” he replied to her unspoken question. They heard some noise from the other side of the door. “I think our soldier has woken up from his nap.”

“Did you really have to taze and drug him?” she mumbled under her breath, not really expecting him to hear her but he halted his movement towards the door to turn around and look at her. There was a smile on his face that hadn’t been there before and it didn’t look half bad. He didn’t say anything to her as he turned back around, entering the room with a suave spring in his steps that would have looked ridiculous had it been anyone else.

“Recognize this room?” he said as she snuck in behind him, her head lowered and not at all as confident and unbothered by this as he was. “It’s the same hotel room you stayed in 95 years ago, or yesterday for us.” He glanced over at her with a smug smile on his face, not at all like the one from just a minute before. “Strange how that works, isn’t it?”

“Lucy,” Rufus said in a breath, ignoring Flynn who was trying to show his authority. Flynn rolled his eyes at this, but didn’t do anything to stop the very confused Rufus from talking to Lucy. “You’re here voluntarily?” His eyebrows knotted together as he looked between Flynn and Lucy.

She avoided looking at the two who were her partners for a brief period of time, instead focusing on the new addition to their team. The historian was a bit older than her but he looked familiar, maybe she’d met him at a conference at one point but it felt like there was something she was missing.

“I didn’t kidnap her if that’s what you thought,” Flynn moved towards the other end of the room, sticking the tape into the player.

“I left a note,” she said, reluctantly looking at Wyatt and Rufus, the former was staring daggers at her. She couldn’t blame him, exactly.

“It didn’t explain why you would run off to conspire with a terrorist who is trying to destroy America,” Wyatt said. “What did he promise you to get you to go with him, did he say he would get your sister back?” He scoffed.

“No, it’s more complicated than that,” Lucy said. She wasn’t prepared to defend herself, especially not when she was still doubting that she’d made the right choice when teaming up with Flynn.

“Lucy here is a part of Rittenhouse,” Flynn said triumphantly, always pleased to be able to show off how much he knew. She shot a glare in his direction. “When Rittenhouse refused to help her get her sister back, in fact I think they forbade her from trying, she came to me.” He paused for a few moments. “Rittenhouse are the bad guys, not me and she knows that.” He leaned back on the table behind him. “Want to hear Nixon confirm this?” He hovered over the play-button.

“What? You have the tape?” Rufus stuttered. “It was in the White House basement?”

“I also own a color printer and a laminator Rufus,” he deadpanned. “Unfortunately I shot two guards on the way out and I need your help.”

“Our help?” Wyatt asked.

“Just wait… and listen.” Flynn pressed play. Nixon’s voice filled the room, and since she’d already listened to it, already knew that Nixon was in bed with Rittenhouse, she watched the reaction of the new team instead. The historian, whose name she still couldn’t recall was watching her with a cool expression that didn’t seem to fit with the profile of an academic who was in the field for the first time. Then Wyatt who just seemed to be pissed off, not quite buying into or understanding the deal about Rittenhouse just yet. Lastly there was Rufus who seemed to be on the verge of a panic attack that only got worse when Nixon said the name Rittenhouse.

He knew, she thought. He knew about Rittenhouse and what they were doing. If there was anyone she thought would’ve been on Rittenhouse’s side it would’ve been Wyatt. The soldier role would have been a perfect role for a Rittenhouse agent to be in, especially a delta force soldier like he was. The one person who she could have suspected turned out the be the most innocent of them all. Maybe the other historian could be more innocent but somehow she doubted it with the glare he was giving her.

“Rittenhouse,” Flynn said as pressed pause. “Did you all hear that?” None of the three responded to his question but he pressed forward anyway. “What do you know about Rittenhouse?” he surveyed the room and then paused on Lucy. “Care to tell the class?”

“Flynn,” she started to protest, but he held his hand up to stop her. “It’s an organization… as old as the US itself and they… they want to control everything from the shadows, they don’t believe in democracy just their own ideas. They are obsessed with control.” She had never spoken negatively about them before, it went against everything she had been taught. Family was everything, in their eyes. For family, you did anything and sacrificed everything. People who didn’t belong to your family were inconsequential, they were obstacles or pieces to be moved. Advancement was all that was necessary, because they had centuries of knowledge ingrained into every piece of their organization on how to gain power, how to remain in power, and how to yield it.

“Lucy here was practically royalty before she came to me, now I suspect they’re as ready to kill her as they are me.” Her eyes flew to him, a sudden fear struck her. She hadn’t thought of that before. That she’d just painted a bull’s eye on her back. Traitors don’t remain alive too long. Of course, she’d heard about the ones who joined after they’d been introduced to Rittenhouse by their family, everyone did in time, but then tried to leave after a couple of years. Either you were dragged back or you were killed. Those cases were rare, no one had tried to deflect to her knowledge since she found out about Rittenhouse. They were just stories before.

“What do you need us for?” Wyatt asked through his teeth.

“I need Rufus for this,” Flynn popped the tape out. “You and mister historian will be staying here.”

“What?” Rufus echoed her thinking. He hadn’t told her what he was planning on doing, hadn’t said anything about how to get what they needed here. She’d informed him about the Nixon tape and its connection to Rittenhouse, it was already in the journal though.

“You will go with Lucy and you will find the document,” he looked over at her to find her staring at him confusion. “You have five hours before I kill Wyatt and… whoever this guy is.”

He knew her already, knew her in a way that was both unfair and very irritating. She’d yet to be able to read her own journal but she knew there were personal notes in there, there always were. She’d journaled since she was a child, a habit her mother had strongly encouraged both her daughters to do. She knew nothing about him but he knew her weaknesses, knew her strengths, knew that she would do all that she could to save someone’s life.

Rufus, as inexperienced and confused as he was, did follow her out and agree to help Flynn in order to save Wyatt and the still nameless historian.

“You’re honestly working with him?” Rufus asked as the stalked down the boardwalk at a quick pace, both wanting to get this over with as quick as possible. “The guy who is trying to essentially blow America up? You don’t think that’s wrong?”

“I’m helping him so he doesn’t do that, to make as little damage to the timeline as possible.” She huffed, “besides, you’re working with Rittenhouse so I would cool it with the judgment, okay?”

“What?” He stuttered, to which she gave him a deadpan look in reply.

“I saw your face when Flynn went to play the tape, you knew just as I did that it was about Rittenhouse, and you know how secret it is.” She didn’t have time for this, for him to be outraged and for her to fear what this means.

“They’re threatening my family, okay?” She halted her steps. This was her family, the people she’d been supporting and working for most of her adult life. They played people like they played Rufus, preying on their weaknesses. Loved ones were a dangerous thing to have when dealing with Rittenhouse, which was the reason they put pressure on their members to have them. To marry, to have children, to make connections with people. When you care about people you are easy to manipulate. It was the same way Flynn was able to get her out here, why Rufus was helping him.

“They do that,” she said, drawing a deep breath before she continued, “they’re my family, my… my entire life at this point essentially, but I can’t keep ignoring what they’re doing anymore. I used to turn the other way because they kept me safe, because I was scared. I can’t do that anymore Rufus.” She shook her head. “I have to stop them.”

“Why did you go to him?” She’d never told them about her sister being gone, she hadn’t told them anything. All she had done was write them a note to tell them to go back to 2016 because she’d gone with Flynn and had it delivered by the hotel butler. That was all they knew. 

“I have a sister, or I had a sister,” she started walking again, the movement helped because if he was walking he wouldn’t focus as much on her. “When I came back from the Hindenburg she was gone, and when I asked them to help me save her they refused because it wasn’t in their interest, it was in their interest to keep Amy… gone.”

“Working with Flynn won’t bring your sister back, it will do the exact opposite of bring her back you know.” He figured it out quicker than her, but she had been desperate to find a solution to her problem. At this point it didn’t matter.

“They wouldn’t let me save her anyway.” She looked over at him. There was something about Rufus, something disarming and genuine. She knew that he was doing what he thought was his only option, only way to protect his family. To save them from the fate that Flynn’s family suffered.

\---

Without Rufus’ help they wouldn’t have figured out who the Doc was, that she wasn’t a document but a person. It took a great deal of detective work, pretending to be journalists and Rufus managing to convince the Black Liberation Army that he was with them. Somehow they did it, and she wasn’t quite sure how at the end of it.

She called Flynn from the safe house, ordering Rufus back to the hotel with the water soaked recorder and to get the historian and Wyatt back to 2016.

“So, you need my help,” Doc stated as they sat across from each other in the living space.

“We’re trying to stop them.” Lucy didn’t want to get into too much detail. Time travel was difficult enough as it was and she wasn’t about to reveal to Doc that she was a time traveler and former Rittenhouse-member from the year 2016 wanting information so that she could tear the organization down bit by bit until it was crumbles in history that no one would remember.

“That’s a big ambition,” she smirked, knowing how impossible it was to take them down in the current era. “They’re everywhere.”

“Which is why we need the list of members, on paper.” Doc let out a long breath as she leaned back on the couch she sat on, shaking her head as she mulled it over.

“It’s going to take a long time to get them all written down, longer than either of us have.”

“I don’t need all of them.” Too many people would be too data much to go through, anyway. It would be impossible for them to tell who were the ones with important positions and who were nobodies to Rittenhouse. “Just the members the first 50 years it existed.” That list couldn’t be too long, could it?

She sighed. “Do you have pen and paper?” That moment Lucy was eternally grateful that she always carried a notebook and a pen with her wherever she went.

Twentu minutes later Flynn arrived walking towards her as he kept looking over to Doc. This wasn’t what he expected. It wasn’t a document, it wasn’t a paper with information about Rittenhouse. A person changes things, she knew that. He knew that.  His men were in tow looking like it was any other day. None of them had been impressed when she’d shown up with Flynn to the mothership in the 1860s. They never commented on her presence but they didn’t complain about her either. She was there, and that was about as much they were willing to give her.

“You got a list of members?” He looked over at Doc as she was writing down names in deep concentration. His mouth opened in the biggest grin she’d ever seen him wear, a laugh escaping at the utter joy of suddenly getting so close to the end of it all.

“The first 50 years of members,” she corrected, “there have been too many members for her to write down, but the first 50 years should do a good job.” She looked over her shoulder again to Doc. “After we’re done here we’ll go back there and we’ll finish this.”

It was then she heard the noise. It had them all halting in their movements trying to figure out what it was before Flynn’s face set into the grim one she was accustomed to.

“Hide,” he ordered Doc, shoving her into a closet and barricading it with a heavy piece of furniture. Lucy had wanted to hide in there herself, but instead Flynn put a gun in her hand giving her a pointed look she had no idea what it meant. It probably meant shoot, but she really didn’t want to. The last time she tried to shoot someone, namely Flynn, it hadn’t gone well at all. The only reason she was still alive today was because he believed they were destined to work together. Any other person and she wouldn’t be alive still.

Moments later bullets were flying everywhere and she dove behind the couch to avoid getting hit. It was so loud, she knew bullets were loud but it was deafening. How did they not flinch at each gunshot like she did?

It was then she saw him, one of the Rittenhouse men walking towards the closet with his gun drawn.

“No.” she scrambled herself into a better sitting position, fumbling with the gun in her hand and held it out. “No no no no.” She had one shot at this, literally one single shot that would not just give up her position but also mark her as someone to take out. She held the gun out in both her hands, her finger squeezing the trigger. The blow back pushed her back into the couch, her shoulder already aching at the suddenness and force of it, but the man went down like a stack of cards.

She could hear nothing but the sound of her breaths, of her desperately trying to pull air into her lungs but it wasn’t doing anything. She couldn’t breathe. She could hear herself breathing but the oxygen was useless. She was suffocating. She clawed at her chest, at the neckline of her dress. The man was bleeding out. A puddle of blood underneath him. He was breathing just as fast as she were, and then he was not. He was… She pushed the gun away from her. Pushed herself away from the gun. Her head was swimming. Her legs felt like there were ants crawling in her bloodstream. She was suffocating. She couldn’t breathe.

“Lucy.” His voice snapped her out of her head, but he was blurry and far away. She couldn’t concentrate on him. “Lucy you’re having a panic attack.” He looked around and said something to someone, she didn’t know what, and then he crouched on the floor next to her. “Lucy, can you feel the floor underneath you?” She reached a hand out against the hardwood floor. “It’s cool to the touch, isn’t it?” She nodded. “What can you smell?”

“Smoke?” She couldn’t pinpoint what exactly it smelled like, but it wasn’t pleasant.

“Okay, copy my breathing.” She watched him take slow breaths and did her best to mimic his movements, far slower than how she breathed before. “You’re okay now, Lucy. We have a car outside and we have to go, but we’re okay now.”

She nodded, and he looped one of his arms under hers and scooped her up. “I killed him,” she said.

“I know.” He pulled her against him, holding her up as he hurried them outside. She saw Doc ahead of her, but she hadn’t seen her get out of the closet. “You did what you had to do.”

She wanted to believe him. She saved Doc’s life, she knew that. It was still a life. It was still someone’s life that she ended, someone who had a family who would miss him, maybe a child or two that would never get to hug their father again. She ended everything for him. It wasn’t okay. Maybe it was necessary, but it wasn’t okay.


	3. Chapter 3

This time the landscape looked different. She had gone further out from the barn they were in and the sleeping cots that were now occupied by a group of men snoring contently as if nothing was wrong in the world.

“Amy,” she tried again, feeling the lump in her throat grow bigger. Desperation was building in her chest as she grabbed onto the nearest tree. The bark was rough against her forehead as she leaned against it, grounding her to now. “Amy,” she whimpered her name. She had never needed her sister as much as she needed her now. Never needed to hug her, to see her face, to talk to her about what she had done. The terrible, terrible, thing she had done.

Someone cleared their throat behind her. She turned her head to see who it was, but didn’t have the energy or will to do anything else. Flynn was standing there in jeans and a t-shirt, not much different than what she was wearing. In a few days, all this would be over, if it weren’t for that she would have made the effort to get something that actually fit her.

“Are you doing okay?” She didn’t answer him. It was a stupid question, of course she wasn’t okay. She’d killed a person and her sister was gone. She’d turned on her family and started working with a man who killed people and would’ve put a wrecking ball to history to get his family back if it weren’t for her. Nothing was okay about this situation. “Want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know what to say.” Her voice was hoarse. After all the crying, the panic attacks, her throat felt raw and reluctant to allow her to speak. “I don’t know what to feel.”

“If it’s any comfort your reaction is entirely reasonable.” She scoffed. Reasonable? That was comforting. “I remember the first… the first time I killed someone.” His voice took that contemplative tone that it sometimes took when he was telling a story. In the few days she’d known him that had only happened twice. The first time was at the Hindenburg when he first tried to get her to see his side in all of this. “It was in Kosovo, and I was 20 years old and I was behind a barricade when… he was a part of a larger group and there was a fire exchange and then I saw him and there was an opening, and I shot him.”

She twisted herself around to come face to face with him. He wasn’t looking at her, his eyes were fixed on a spot on the ground that was barely visible in the dark. The sun had set almost two hours ago now, and the only thing that lit up the woods was the small lights outside of the barn by the generator they had set up.

“This is war just like that was war. It’s as much internal as it is external, and if you don’t feel bad about killing someone then you have lost.”

“Do you feel bad about the people you kill now?” There had been so many since the night he stole the mothership. The security guards, people in the past shot like they were inconsequential, just obstacles in the way.

“Like I said, you have lost if you lose that part of your humanity.” She shook her head, refusing the answer.

“Do you feel bad about it?” She asked again, staring him down until he shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.

“I remember every single one of them, I can count them, I know when I killed them,” he drew a long breath, “but I no longer feel bad about it. I know why I am doing this, for who I am doing this.”

“Your family,” she filled in. “So you can return to them.” She thought about Amy again. At the end of this Flynn would have his family back, but what would she have? There would be no one left for her in 2016. She would be completely alone in the world. If she had a shot at seeing Amy again she knew exactly what she would do. She would hug her, she would bury her face in her neck to remember the scent of her that she had already forgot. She would crack jokes to hear her laugh and see her smile. She would stare at her. She would tell her all about what had happened and then she would hug her and not let her out of her sight for days until Amy would protest about needing some space. “What are you going to do when you see them again?”

He paused for a few beats, a flash of sadness falling across his face. “I’m going to hug them, make sure they’re alright,” he looked down at the ground, “then I’m going to leave and never come back.”

“But why?” she stuttered. “You’re doing all of this to get them back just to leave them?” She didn’t get it, she didn’t get him.

“Losing them changed me.” He leaned against a tree and sat down, resting his arms on his knees as he stared into the darkness beyond her. “I became something that they wouldn’t recognize. I’ve done horrible things since they died, things that cannot ever be forgiven and I can’t bring that into our home. I can’t be around them with the darkness of what I’ve done to save them hanging over us. They deserve better than that."

“Isn’t that up them to decide?” He shook his head, burying it in his hands. “They love you, and they will want you to be with them.”

His hands dropped from his face. “I’m not the man I used to be, I’m not the person they knew, the one Lorena fell in love with, the one Iris had as a father.” He drew a deep breath. “I can’t be that person anymore, all I can do is make sure that they live, that they get to be happy. That’s my life’s purpose now.”

“I used to think you were a monster,” she said, almost too quietly for him to hear, “you were the monster I needed, and I used you for that. But now, after the last trip… you said we are in a war, you’re in the middle of it now but you will heal from this you know? You can go back.” She paused for a few moments, feeling the ache in her chest, the pain in her shoulder from the blow back, the confusion of not knowing what was ahead. “It won’t ever be the same, but it will be a life.”

“You’re scared,” he noted.

“I don’t know what’s waiting for me.” The lump in her throat thickened and pressure built up behind her eyes but she willed it to go away. “The one person I have always had in my corner will be gone, I will have lost everything. I don’t know if I will have my job anymore. Or my degree. Anything.”

“We’ll both be on our own.” She nodded.

“You know, I didn’t know about Rittenhouse until I was 20,” she started. “I was driving home to my mom to tell her that I was dropping out of college to join a band, because that seemed like a totally sensible thing to do when you’re 20, and it was late and I was rehearsing this speech over and over again. I had all the arguments planned, I knew exactly what she was going to say, and I was going to tell her that it was my life and my choice. She’d always been very strict with us, about what we could and couldn’t do, she was really great at guilt-tripping us into making the choices she wanted us to make.

I must have been so into my head trying to find the best words to say that I didn’t see the oil patch on the road. The car spun out of control and I ended up in this freezing lake. It was winter and I couldn’t get the car door open while the water was pouring in. I knew… I knew that I was going to die but I was still fighting to get out because I just wanted to get back home, I just wanted to live. I didn’t care about anything else then. I didn’t care about joining a band. Someone must have seen me going in, because the next thing I knew I was being pulled out of the car.

After that I vowed to always do safe things again. Only things that I could control. I could control things when I was studying, facts were facts, they didn’t change. The only thing that changed was our perception of it, you know? So, when I came to in the hospital I was scared, I wanted nothing to do with the unpredictable. That’s when my mom told me about Rittenhouse, that I had this legacy and that it was about helping people, and about making progress happen, and shaping the history of our world. That they were a secret organization that worked against the will of the American people didn’t matter. I would do anything for my family and to be with them, protect them, and to be safe.

They took away the scary part of making big decisions. They told me what to do. I was always on steady ground with them, and that safety made me ignore all the horrible things they’d do. I didn’t know it all, they often gave me the sanitized or completely false version of it. Sometimes I figured it out, but I don’t know it all. I ignored the bad things because it meant I got to be with my family. They told me what to study, what to work with, what to focus my studies on. They told me who I should marry and have children with. It was easy.

Then you came along and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. They asked me to  _ shoot  _ you, to kill you. I know they were testing me, to see if I was ready to go into the deep end. Apparently, my family has a high standing in all of this. You changed everything. You forced me to see what has been right in front of me this whole time. I left it all, gave it all up, for you and your family.”

She hadn’t told anyone that story. She’d shared the story of the accident a few times, but she had never told anyone about why she agreed to join Rittenhouse. Had never confessed to her selfish reasons to ignore what was right.

“You’re the first person I’ve said this to.”  She looked down in her lap. Somewhere in the middle of her speech she had sat down opposite him, but with the trees far apart there was a good foot between their outstretched legs.

“We do horrible things for the people we love,” he said. “Love has the power to turn us into terrible people.” She furrowed her eyebrows at this.

“No,” she shook her head. “Love gives us the excuses, but love has the power to change the world.” She touched the locket that was resting on her sternum underneath the t-shirt she wore.

“Is that what you’re doing, changing the world?”

“We are, aren’t we? How is what we’re doing anything less than a revolution?” She thought back to the history that she had studied, the revolutions and wars and conflicts that she knew intimately. “We’re a small one, small but mighty,” she smiled, but he wasn’t as easily swayed.

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” he leaned forward to see her better in the dim light. “But that’s not why I’m doing this.”

“Does it matter? You’re still doing it.” She hesitated for a second. “You were off to a rocky start but I think you’re getting there.”

“I’m not a monster anymore then?” There was an almost smile on his face.

“No… I think you’re just sad.” They made eye-contact for probably the first time that night, eyes locking and two completely open souls reaching across the space between them. It was the closest she’d ever been to a person, and they were sitting several feet apart. For the first time in years she didn’t feel alone with everything, like a heavy burden was resting solely on her shoulders. She was free and so was he, and they had the power to do almost whatever they wanted. It was like a hug, that kind of hug where the world disappears around them and all that could be felt is the skin and warmth of the other person, the steady heartbeat under in their chest, the soft breathing.

She stood up on her knees and crawled up to him as he watched her with confusion. She didn’t say anything, just wrapped her arms around his body, falling against him softly. He was that warmth she needed, the steadiness. For a moment he hesitated, his arms limp next to his body, but then he lifted his arms and wrapped them around her.

\---

She spent the next days doing research. The list of names was incomplete but long. At the top of it was David Rittenhouse. Just a man who created an organization that one day came to rule America and most of the western world. There was little known about the man beyond that he was a famous clockmaker, yet it was enough to find out where and when he lived. That was encouraging, but not enough.

It made the others impatient but she wanted to know everything she could going there. There was no room for errors which meant that she had to touch up on the customs and the history of that time to ensure that their covers were solid and they knew what to do.

The third night back in 2016 she was back in the woods again, needing to get some space from the group of men who didn’t approve of her presence. Whenever she neared them they would hush whatever conversation they were having, and sometimes she’d turn around and find one of the men staring daggers at her. She had no idea what it was about her that inspired such contempt, but she had no interest in mending any possible fences that were between them.

Outside in the cooling fall air she could breathe, escape the thick tension that weighed on her all the time. She wanted this over with as quickly as they did, the waiting in limbo was hard. She could still save her sister, some way she could do it. If she went through with this she ruined that possibility forever.

She heard him walking towards her before she saw him.

“Come out here to spy on me?” she teased, burying her hands in the deep pockets of the hoodie. The temperature had suddenly dropped over ten degrees the night before, and summer was officially over. “Thanks for the hoodie.”

He shrugged. “No problem.” He sat down next to her on the ground and followed her gaze towards the horizon that was hidden by the night.

“I think we’re ready,” she said. “Tomorrow. If we have the clothes then we’re ready tomorrow.”

“We’re ready,” he nodded once.

“We’re going to be married, when we go there, that’s our cover.” She didn’t look at him. It was awkward enough. “You’re going to be a soldier, a lieutenant colonel that has heard about Rittenhouse and wants to join him. I’m your second wife, your first wife died in child birth twelve years ago and you weren’t ready to remarry until three years ago. I’m also a widower, my first husband died from tuberculosis five years ago.” She dug her hands deeper into the pockets. If telling the story now was awkward how would it be acting it out? “Neither of us have children, it’s easier that way.”

“Do we need deeds for the marriage?” She shook her head.

“No, I don’t think that would be necessary. It might even be more suspicious if we have them on hand with us. We’re only traveling to visit him, there’s no reason to transport a document like that then.”

“Is this what you and Wyatt did in 1865?” She fought the urge to roll her eyes at the hint of jealousy in his voice.

“No, we were brother and sister. I don’t think the two of us look enough alike to pull that off.”

“Are you saying I’m old?” She laughed at that, and there was something about her laugh and how genuine and big it was that had him chuckling with her. It was short-lived, but it was something.

“I also think it’s more believable that a husband brings his wife rather than a brother bringing his sister,” she added. “Are you ready to do this?”

“I’m ready for all of this to be over.” He could only see as far as the tree line from here, the rest of the world was encased in darkness. It was easy to feel as if nothing in the world existed beyond this place, like they were just blips in time and nothing could touch them. Maybe that’s all they were, because when this was all over it would be as if this moment never happened. It would only be a memory that would die with them.

“But are you ready to leave them, to give them up?” She turned her body around to face him, legs crisscross. “You’ve been fighting to get to them back but have you thought about what it will be like to leave them?”

“Every day.” Whenever he thought about their reunion, about hugging them and kissing Lorena for one last time, his thoughts always crossed over to the moment he would leave them. He hadn’t decided yet how he would leave them. If he would simply turn around and walk out the door, never returning. If he would sneak out in the middle of the night. Maybe, maybe he would let himself take a few days.

“I don’t know how it will feel after all this is over.” He looked over at her. “When she’s truly gone, I don’t know how to grieve her. When dad died, I had her and mom to lean on… now I won’t have anyone. I will be alone.” A tear escaped her eye, and then another one followed, and another one until they were flowing freely down her face. She didn’t wipe them away, just sniveled quietly.

“You’ll have me,” he said as quietly as he could, his eyes closing immediately as if he regretted the words that fell off his lips. Being vulnerable wasn’t something he was comfortable with. “You can talk to me, when you need to.”

“What if I don’t exist anymore then?” she asked, the question that had been burning a hole in her head for days now. She didn’t want to voice it. It scared her more than anything had before. More than almost drowning in her car years ago. “What if I erase myself?” Dying was one thing but this was something bigger and at the same time smaller. If she died she believed she would go to an afterlife, but if she was erased? Did that count as dying? Would her life be counted even if it didn’t happen? She would be forgotten, remembered by Flynn maybe for a while. It was the loneliest kind of death she could imagine. “What if I just cease to exist?”

“The locket survived the time travel, even if history changed you still had proof of another timeline existing. Why would you disappear if it remains?” She told him about her sister and the locket the other day after they had detangled themselves from each other.

“A locket isn’t a person, it doesn’t have a soul or memories,” she pulled the locked out from under the hoodie to look at it. “Maybe I will just be a body that returns.” She opened the locket to one more time look at her sister’s smile, the one she already started struggling to remember. It had just been days yet it felt like forever ago.

“You still want to help me?” He was giving her an out. There was no hidden agenda, no manipulation. He was giving her the option of staying here and not having to go through it. She would disappear without a doubt if she did, but she would not have to erase herself.

“I want your daughter to have a life, to live… I don’t have much for me now, I can’t go back to my old life I’ll spend it all in jail probably without a trial. I’ve made my bed already.”


	4. Chapter 4

It was early morning when they climbed into the mothership to do what they hoped would be the last trip into the past. The billowing skirts of the 18th century was something 7-year-old her would’ve loved to wear, but 33-year-old Lucy was annoyed by them. It was one thing she wouldn’t miss about these trips. That and the danger they posed and the corsets. She couldn’t deny that the dresses were aesthetically good looking, just not worth the hassle. She had tried to get dressed by herself but towards the end she had to recruit Flynn to help her with the ties to the dress.

Eventually, they got going. Strangely enough it felt like the same nerves she had when she would go on a trip somewhere new, like she was just going to Germany for the first time and not 1770. There were the same butterflies in her belly of something unknown, but time travel was too big and strange of a concept to wrap her mind around so of course her brain equated it with a vacation or a work-trip somewhere in the now.

They arrived not too far from the house where Rittenhouse lived in. From the research she’d done she knew he had had countless wives in his life, far too many to all have passed from natural causes, and with each wife he had a child or two. At the moment, he only had one son young enough to stay with him. But it was difficult to know for sure if one of his older children would be around. Overall, he didn’t seem like the type of man who was foundationally good. It was far more likely that he was just bad all the way through. Rotten to the core.

She tried to focus on that assessment as they made their way to the mansion he lived in. They purchased both a horse and carriage with some of the coins they had brought with them, and a couple of Flynn’s men went along posing as employees of Flynn. Their cover was good, she was confident in that. There just were too many variables they couldn’t know about that could impact the outcome of today.

The conversation she had with Flynn the night before was spinning around in her head. There wasn’t much to do now about it, but she never saw herself as a martyr before this. She wasn’t sure she qualified yet for the role. All she knew was that she needed to avenge her sister. It sounded ridiculous in her head. Avenging someone was what superheroes and movie protagonists did. Not historians that all in all lived a fairly quiet life. Until Flynn came along.

Was she ready to die, or disappear, for this? No, she wasn’t. But between the rock and the hard place she had to choose one option. Once again, the hard place was less defined and thus less scary than the rock she knew. Once again, she chose the hard place with Flynn next to her. This was her shot at survival, at a life. Even though it was nothing she knew or could ever know beforehand.

It went against everything she’d done since the car accident over a decade ago. For so long she’d played it safe with the devil she knew. She should have figured out a long time ago that it would be Amy that would shake it up for her, the one who would force her out of her shell and do something with her life. Find herself.

She recalled the last conversation she had with her sister. It was hard to believe it was just a little over a week ago, it felt like forever. She’d implored Lucy to find her own path, to not just follow in her mother’s footsteps. At 27 she was far wiser and more in-tune with herself than Lucy had ever been. If she was honest Amy scared her a lot of the time. The way she yielded her freedom, and remained fearless in the face of blowbacks and obstacles in her way, made everything about Amy uncertain. There was no way to predict where she would end up next, what other adventures she would take on. Until today Lucy hadn’t realized just how similar they were, that it had been hiding underneath all the layers that Rittenhouse had piled over her.

How she wished that she could turn to Amy now and show her who she’d become. That she’d shed all the layers of bullshit and uncovered herself underneath. Maybe it was too late.

“We’re almost there,” one of Flynn’s men said. She hadn’t learnt their names, since they’d never spoken to her she couldn’t say who was who. Flynn said their names at times, but it did little to help her.

She turned to look at the landscape. It was still largely untouched, unaware of the buildings, highways, and streets that would soon erase the natural beauty of the deep forests and wild flowers. In 250 years what would this exact place look like? She could tell you what city would occupy this land but she wondered what building or street would be right where they put their feet as they arrived at Rittenhouse’s mansion.

The gun was heavy in the pocket underneath her dress as she stood, the tie around her waist the held it up strained slightly by the weight of it. She put her hand against it, feeling the cool metal against her thigh through the two layers of material. It was only for her safety. Just in case. Flynn assured her that he and his men were going to be protecting her and would be doing most of the shooting. It was only if she was separated from them and it was absolutely necessary.

Flynn knocked on the door. Two heavy knocks before he stepped back to stand next to her. It felt like forever before someone opened the door, the silence dragging on heavy and almost unbearable. It was about to happen. It was about to happen. They’d been talking and preparing for days for this, and this was it. This was the curtain call. No going back.

A butler opened the door to them, a surprised yet unimpressed sneer donned his features as he regarded the small group standing on the porch in front of him.

“Hello, I’m lieutenant colonel Flynn,” he said with the confidence and theatricality she’d suspected he’d used in the past to get what he wanted. She’d never seen him in action like this before, it was unlike anything she’d ever seen. If Flynn had wanted to be an actor he could have been, she thought, trying to not stare at Flynn as he spoke. “I’ve been inspired by General Allen to talk to David Rittenhouse on matters regarding the future of this nation.” He said it with ease, almost exactly like they had practiced the night before.

“Come inside, I will alert the master of your presence.” When inside they were already one man short. Two of the men stayed with the horse and carriage, guarding them from the outside. They were a small army invading an unsuspecting enemy. This was their one shot to win all of this.

They were ushered into a dim room with heavy curtain across the windows and the disappearing daylight struggled to find itself in. It was lit up by candles placed throughout the room, clocks were donning every wall and a workbench in the middle of the room was filled with half completed watches and tools she couldn’t name.

“This is new,” a voice drawled behind them. David Rittenhouse was a short statured man with glasses perched low on his nose. He took a moment to inspect the room. The four men with severe looks on their faces, and her. A woman who seemed unbothered if not for the restless flicker of her eyes. “You said you want to join my cause?” He stepped further into the room, his own men following him inside.

“We’ve heard whispers about your ideas,” Flynn’s voice beside her almost startled Lucy.

“What ideas would that be?” he said with a lazy smile on his face, eyebrows quirked in question. She’d briefed him before about the values of Rittenhouse. They could be neatly summed up like corporate webpages informing their customers and future employees of what they stood for. Only, Rittenhouse was less about innovation and quality and more about the world domination thing.

“To do what the government and monarchies cannot, control the people from the shadows for their own good, give the people the direction they need to have but are too ignorant to know they should have,” Flynn said, a biting edge to his words that almost convinced her that he believed what he was saying. “People ruling themselves would be anarchy, they wouldn’t know what direction to walk in or what to do with themselves, they need rational people who are not driven by selfish greed like monarchies to guide them.”

“I see,” David Rittenhouse paused in his step. “Sit down.” He gestured to the table at the far side of the room. Flynn move towards the table as Lucy paused, unsure if the demand was extended to her as well. “Let me look at you,” Rittenhouse said, his eyes falling on her. “I can’t see as well as I used to, so you’ll have to come to me, my dear.”

When she hesitated for a moment one of his men gave her shoulder a light push between her shoulder blades. The few feet were closed quickly. Rittenhouse was shorter than Lucy by a few inches, but his eyes on her face inspecting every inch of it made it certain that she knew that he had all the power.

“A beautiful lady you have brought with you, lieutenant.” He grabbed her jaw to move her head as he wanted. Cattle. That was what she felt like. A piece of meat in the market looking to be sold. Not a person, no one of value. She shook her head free of his grip. “Nice teeth and skull proportions, but her hips are a bit narrow… tell me, have you reproduced yet?”

“She’s my wife,” Flynn said with a gruff voice, not having moved from his spot halfway to the table.

“So, no children yet?” He looked between them, but settling his eyes on her. She’d figured that he was a sleazy man from what she’d read about him, the number of marriages and children. It was an easy assumption to make.

“She’s with child,” Flynn piped up again. Something changed in Rittenhouse’s eyes, a flicker of disappointment as he stepped away from her. She was as thin as she’d ever been, but underneath the large skirts and layers it would be impossible to tell if she was pregnant or not, especially not if she was early on.

“Sit down,” he ordered her, and she followed Flynn towards the table. Things were not going to plan, even the flexible tentative plan was gone and out of the window. As she sat down next to Flynn he leaned over to whisper in her ear.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he whispered in her ear. Then he leaned back just slightly, his face just by hers. He was handsome. Handsome in the way that undeniably masculine. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t noticed, but she hadn’t truly noticed until his face was just an inch away from hers. His eyes were much lighter than she thought, with his hair and everything about him being dark she thought his eyes would be brown. They were blue. How hadn’t she noticed that before?

He pressed his lips to hers, soft – was there anything about him that was what she expected? Her hand reached out to him, to place against his sternum but instead gripped at the jacket he wore. He was unexpected. Everything about him was unexpected. The drumming of her heart faded as she melted into him. His lips on her lips burned and calmed her all at once, demanding more. Electricity sparked and his hand at the back of her head grasped at her hair. She wanted more. More of him. More of that spark that made all the nerves in her body stand at attention. All that she could hear was his breathing, her breathing. His hand on her head, his lips moving against hers still innocent, the other hand reaching her face with a soft caress. She opened her mouth—

David Rittenhouse coughed, bringing them back to reality. It was a cold shower that pushed them away from each other. The air between the two of them was different now, the connection between them hadn’t been cut. It was a thick wire that held her to him, and him to her. She couldn’t shake him, she knew without even trying. It was unlike anything she ever experienced.

She’d experienced a good kiss, attraction, and desire. She knew the feeling of them all. That kiss was all of that and more. She almost couldn’t see Rittenhouse across the table as he looked at them.

“You are the first recruits I have received this way,” he said. He was still standing up, making this look like a cross examination rather than a conversation. She suspected that was exactly what it was. “How did you say you heard about us?”

“I have grown close to general Allen over the years, I expressed my concerns about the future of our nation after the war has been won and he told me about you.” If they believed Rittenhouse would survive this encounter with them they wouldn’t have thrown a anyone under the bus like that. “We want to ensure that we leave a legacy for our child, a future that we believe in.”

“I would believe you,” he started, looking over his shoulders at his men and their men, “but I haven’t gotten this far without being to spot when a man is looking to kill me.” He signaled his men who surrounded them in an instance. A knife to all their throats quicker than they could react.

The cool blade against her throat was just close enough that she could feel it. It made her scared to take a too deep breath, scared that it would push her against the blade. She drew shallow breaths as she looked over at Flynn who was being relieved of his weapons, as were the others. They weren’t searching her.

Rittenhouse turned around with the weapon in hand aiming at one of Flynn’s mean and three shots rang out in quick succession. 

As Rittenhouse inspected Flynn’s weapon, marveling at its look and feel, all Lucy could feel was gratefulness that it wasn’t her lying on that floor. Then she saw him in the corner, a child that could barely have been more than two years old looking at the events unfolding in the room with wide-eyed horror. It was his son, of course it was. She remembered the church books, that child would have turned two just four months earlier.

In desperation she looked towards Flynn, hoping to catch his attention and alert him of the boy’s presence but he wasn’t looking at her. That’s when she saw the watch. Relief washed through her body as she saw him press a button on there that she was sure would alert the men outside, had they not already stormed in after hearing the gunshots.

Just moments later the room erupted in chaos as Flynn’s remaining men kicked the doors open. It gave them the distraction they needed to push the men away and fight back.

Once again, the room was filled with the deafening sounds of gunshots but she wouldn’t let herself get scared this time. She wouldn’t be distracted. She caught sight of the boy again who was cowering in the corner, and crawled her way towards him. How could a father subject his son to this? Why was he here?

Despite all the chaos she got to him without getting shot or trampled, and for that she was grateful.

“Hey, it’s alright,” she said, reaching out to the boy, softly rubbing his arm. “I’m going to keep you safe.” He didn’t respond to her, just continued staring without seeing. “I’m Lucy,” she tried, but the boy said nothing.

“Get away from my son,” David Rittenhouse’s voice boomed behind her, and chill’s ran down her body. She’d been so distracted that she hadn’t paid attention to who was winning. If he was still speaking. She turned around, expecting to see Flynn and his men losing. But they were all standing, fighting the Rittenhouse men.

“No.” She’d never heard that tone in her voice before, the fervor and protectiveness. She wouldn’t move, not even for a charging horde of elephants. He was innocent, just a child. He shouldn’t be seeing this.

“I want him to see the people who kill to try to stop us from doing our work.” Nothing seemed to rattle him, not even the bloodshed that was happened behind him. His voice remained even and unbothered even as his men fell one after another like domino bricks.

She pushed the boy further behind her, digging for the slit in her dress to find the pocket. The weapon had been heavy against her thigh all night, reminding her of what she might need to do. She grasped it in her hand pulled it out. Her aim was shaky, it wasn’t perfect but she had him in her sight. He halted his steps for only moment.

“I don’t think you will kill me, no you’re not prepared to have that blood on your hands.” He tutted.

“You wouldn’t be the first man I killed.” Her voice was shaking. She wished that it wouldn’t because it had no effect on Rittenhouse. She could see it on his face that he thought she was just an hysterical woman who was making promises she couldn’t keep. She gritted her teeth. “Don’t take another step!” she shouted.

But he didn’t listen. He took one step forward and she squeezed the trigger, this time she was prepared for the push back. It hit his shoulder, and he kept walking as if it was just a light blow. Kept advancing preparing to knock the gun out of her hand.

No. He wouldn’t take her. He wouldn’t kill her. She wouldn’t let him. This was not how she was going to go. She was not going to allow her sister to be gone in vain. She was going to make her existence matter.

She pulled the trigger again. Again. Again. Until the gun clicked and no more bullets were coming. It was only when she heard him fall to the ground like a sack of potatoes that she realized that she’d closed her eyes. Closed was good. She didn’t want to see him and she didn’t want to see the blood. She killed him. She killed the man who was the reason she existed.

Her body was still here. She could feel her pulse raging in her body, even her fingertips were pulsating with the adrenaline. It hadn’t erased her. She wasn’t a soul without a body, or a nothingness. She could feel the hardwood floor underneath her, hear the crying of the boy behind her.

Alive. Not gone. Maybe that meant that somewhere Amy was still alive and carrying on life. Another timeline, another place she couldn’t visit but had to exist. If she was still real then Amy had to be, too.

“Lucy,” a voice, not Flynn’s, shouted. “We gotta go!” She opened her eyes to the carnage of bodies around her. Too many of them, at least two of them were Flynn’s men. “Now!” He shouted. It scrambled her into action as she pushed herself from the floor, the sticky blood had coated her dress and for a moment she paused to look at it. The blood of the man who was responsible for the creation of it all. For making the family she knew, for killing Flynn’s wife and child. His blood coated her dress, warm but already cooling.

She turned around to the boy behind her, luckily her body had hidden the view of the room from him. She held his face in her hands her eyes looking into his. Of course, she couldn’t leave him. Not in this room, not here.

“I’m going to carry you out of this room.” She brushed the dark blonde hair out of his face. “I want you to hide your face in my neck, I don’t want you to look up until I say so, do you understand?” The boy whimpered but nodded, and she needed no more prompting to pick the boy up. Just like she told him he pressed his face against her, and she held the back of his head there, her only way of knowing that he wasn’t peeking.

She was the last out of the house, running down the now dark path towards the horse and carriage that had been left outside.

“A child?” one of the men wondered out loud. “Where the fuck did you manage to find one of them?”

“He was in the room, I couldn’t leave him there.” With a little difficulty with the extra weight on the front of her body she pulled herself up into the carriage, settling the boy across her lap. “You can look now,” she whispered to the boy, but he shook his head, refusing to look up from the comfort of being close to her. “I couldn’t leave him,” she whispered again looking over towards Flynn.

He hadn’t said a word but there was a softened look on his face as he watched her. It hit her then, the reason why he was doing what he did, why he became who he was. This child wasn’t even hers but the moment she saw him in that room, completely defenseless with only her in the world to protect him, she knew she had to take care of him. That sense of responsibility and protectiveness times a million and years of love? She killed a man, shot him several times because of the threat he posed to the young boy, and she didn’t even know the name of the child.

She was about to say something to Flynn, she wasn’t sure what really. Maybe to ask him how he felt now, knowing this was about to be over. Then she saw three men walking towards them up the road, the darkness obscuring them.

“Rufus and Wyatt?” she asked Flynn, nodding her head in the direction of the men. He narrowed his eyes and then shrugged.

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to stick around to find out.” He looked over to the man holding the reins for the horse, “Let’s go.”

The ride to the mothership was just a little over an hour, they landed far into the woods to ensure that no one would stumble across it as they visited this time. As the boy in her lap relaxed and started to snore she shifted him in her lap to a more comfortable position. He looked like a baby as he was sprawled across her legs, his head resting in the crook of her arm. He was barely more than a baby.

“What are you going to do with him?” She looked up from the young sleeping boy to look at Flynn. “You can’t exactly drop him off in the woods and there are no orphanages on the way.”

She drew a deep breath trying to sort her head out. She hadn’t been thinking when she took him from the mansion, surely there were more people in that house that could have cared for the boy. Leaving him there felt wrong, it went against everything she felt in those moments of fierce protection. What life did she leave him with here? Being an orphan in the middle of the revolutionary war sounded horrible. After all the things she had done, the things she had excused because it was her family… she had to do the right thing now.

“He’s coming with us,” she said. “My family won’t be there anymore so I’ll… I’ll take care of him.” Of all the ways she could become a mother and this was how it happened? Adopting a child born 250 years in the past after time traveling and murdering his father? That wasn’t a scenario she would have ever considered before.

“Wouldn’t that change history too much?” He too was captivated by the young child, innocent and almost brand new to the world. If he was lucky he wouldn’t remember any of what happened tonight. Maybe he would forget the 18th century entirely. Children were adaptable, if given a good life in the future he could grow up happy.

“It’s already changed so much that one child, a child that wouldn’t live the life he was meant to anyway… one more person missing, what harm would that do?” She drew a deep breath. “I just couldn’t leave him there, what should I have done? I killed his father and he’s just two years old…”

“You’re going to become his mother because you feel guilty?” She glared at him.

“I saw him there across the room and I just understood.” The carriage jostled and the boy in her arm whimpered in his sleep, his eyes starting to flutter open but as she started to rock him in her arms just like a baby him he settled again with a huff. “I understood you, and he isn’t even mine. He was innocent, not a part of any of it and so helpless.” She reached her free hand out to his, squeezing it tightly. “How are you doing?”

“I’m ready, to see them again.” He kept her hand in his.

“Are you ready to leave?” The darkness around them was thick and impossible to see through, only the path lit up by a flashlight was visible. She would’ve protested the usage of it but was too tired to fight. There was no fight left in her.

“I’ve survived two years without them and this time they will be alive.” His smile was bittersweet. “I just have to figure out what to do next.”

“I think there’s going to be an opening for a friend in my life, I think I’ll need the support of someone who knows what to do with a kid.” He untangled his hand from hers and put it around her and pulled her against him. His shoulder wasn’t the most comfortable headrest but the warmth of him had her melting against him to get closer. What was it about him? She hadn’t yet figured out why she was so drawn to him.

“I think I might have a few tips to give you.” Despite what was ahead of him his tone was light, a weight off his shoulder and a hopefulness for the future.

“Do you believe in fate?” she asked realizing what that strange feeling she’d felt ever since she saw the boy in the room was. Belonging. Like all was right in the world again. She hadn’t felt that in a long time, not since long before the accident. “Like this was what was meant to happen all along, like I was supposed to come here for him?”

“You came to me. Did you know that’s how I got the diary?” She could see the mothership now ahead of them, the white surface of it lighting up as the light reflected on it. “You were older… not all of you was there, I couldn’t really make sense of anything you were saying. But you gave me this journal, you said it was yours, and in it it said that you and I were going to work together one day, to fight against Rittenhouse.”

“Does that mean you believe in fate?” The carriage stopped.

“I think it does.” He jumped off the carriage and reached to pick up the boy from her lap. “But now I think it’s up to us.” She jumped down, her feet landing just beside his.

“Time to face the future now.”

They didn’t know what they would find when they returned to 2016, if it was anything like they remembered it, if there was a place for them there. Maybe things were better. Maybe things were worse. Maybe his wife and child weren’t alive. Right now they had that hope which was all that mattered.

Hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... and that was it. This story did take an unexpected end, one that I hadn't actually planned but I couldn't ignore John. I wanted to do something with him, and I wanted Lucy to have something... and maybe Garcia to have something as well. I'm debating writing a follow-up to this story, because there is so much more left to tell I feel!
> 
> Tell me what you think! And check out the timelessbigbang page on tumblr for more amazing works by writers and artists! Once again, I spent whole weekends writing this so I would greatly appreciate a comment over a kudos. This took a lot of time and effort from me, so I would really love hearing your thoughts big or small.


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